Editorial recovery as a strategy for visibility: the case of Gabrielle Wittkop

Abstract

This article analyses the possible recovery of Gabrielle Wittkop’s work (Nantes 1920 - Frankfurt 2002), an unknown Franco-German author and translator for Gallimard (Peter Handke, Uwe Johnson, Hermann Lins, Wolfgang Hildesmeier and Peter Faecke). Based on our interest in the recovery of forgotten contemporary voices and cultural transfers between France and Spain, we will examine, using a sociological methodology, the dissemination and reception of Gabrielle Wittkop’s work in Spain. On the one hand, we will give an account of the reasons that have relegated her work to silence in its original language. On the other hand, after a brief presentation of the different Spanish translations of her work –without going into translatological analysis–, and observing some relevant aspects of the Spanish publishing market, we will explain the Spanish publisher Cabaret Voltaire’s stake in this novelist.